Gary's Mostly Pointless Blog

Mar

Against The Odds

Categories: #Flash Friday

Hiya #FridayFlash folks!

It’s been a while (I think I said that last time) but at least I’m here.

This one’s a bit different for me, I think I was channeling Kurt Vonagut in parts, but I think it’s alright for the most part.

If you remember Brad and Joe, I think they might make an appearance here in the near future and it looks to have a word count in excess of 5k. I know, I know, a bit long for those two but I think it’ll do.

Anyway, here’s my #FridayFlash of the week, “Against The Odds.”

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AGAINST THE ODDS

Will Morton had three distinct visions of his own death before breakfast. In the first, he lost his footing at the top step of the stairs and tumbled to his death. In the second, he nicked his jugular vein after fumbling with a large knife, then collapsed on his kitchen floor and bled to death. Then third was fairly straight forward: he choked (chokes) on one of the sausages he had (will) cooked (cook) for breakfast. Distractedly, he thought about how difficult conjugation was when it came to predictions, but turned his thoughts back to the visions. “Been a while since I had any of those,” he said to no one. “I guess I was due.”

Before this strange gift became manifest, he used to think that the onset of things like this were the result of some traumatic accident or freak occurrence. He was somewhat familiar with the origin stories of comic book superheroes and they usually started with a scene of picturesque normalness. A few pages into any one of these stories might show a frame with electrified letters spelling “UNTIL…” This was not his experience and came to loathe comic book writers for spreading such lies.

Will’s “origin story” (as much as he hated the corny overtones, he had no better way to describe it) was slow and gradual. It started with the existential pondering of his own mortality that any person might think about from time to time. He thought about how fleeting life was and how he might die at any moment for any reason. He thought about getting electrocuted the next time he plugged something into a socket. He thought about getting hit by a car the next time he crossed the street. He thought about the outside chance of being murdered by some psychopath for no reason at all and he thought about a thousand other ways to die. He realized that in most of these visions, he never saw his own end coming at all. This made him think harder. And through this mental wind storm of swirling ideas that grew more ominous and detailed the longer he let them run wild, something that probably wasn’t supposed to happen, happened. He started seeing, not merely imagining, his death in a very real and vivid way.

At first, he thought he needed a drink. Then he started seeing himself very drunk, passing out on his back, vomiting and choking to death. He nixed the idea and thought that a shower might calm him down. Then he saw himself slipping on the soap, banging his head on the faucet and then either bleeding to death or drowning to death. In desperation, he thought of visiting his sister miles away and alternately saw himself hitting a tree and dying, getting hit by runaway semi and dying, and driving off a bridge into a large river and dying. The more he thought about what to do, the more numerous his deaths became and he swiftly lost his mind.

He admitted himself to Holly Oaks Psychiatric Hospital and was treated for paranoid schizophrenia. His psychiatrists did what they could, trying to convince him that he was imagining it all while not really taking anything he said very seriously. Will knew better, of course. He wasn’t imagining it, we was seeing it. Everything from the hallway floor that was waxed to a homicidal slickness to the careless twenty-something intern that almost gave him an overdose on a daily basis. Every day he saw his death a million times and experienced the cold hand of death nearly upon him every waking minute.

On his three week anniversary at Holly Oaks, he met Dr. Omler and everything changed. He listened to Will and, unlike every other doctor he had talked to, actually believed him.

“Wow,” Dr. Omler said after hearing Will wax hysteric about his visions for nearly fifteen minutes without interruption. “That must really suck.”

“You’re just humoring me,” Will said, as a vision of the light fixture above him falling and killing him filled his head. “You don’t know what it’s like…”

“No, no,” Omler said, then said, “Well, yeah, I don’t know what that’s like, but I can imagine. You know, it may not be that crazy. How much do you know about quantum physics?”

Omler described a theory which tried to explain how scientists can’t say for certain what is going on at a subatomic level. There was a theory, Omler explained, that claimed that we can’t know what’s going on at a subatomic level because everything, all possible outcomes (and possibly a few that are impossible), are going on at the same time. “…in parallel dimensions, of course.”

“Of…course,” Will said, wondering just who was the crazy person in the room. “Are you saying that I’m…wait, what are you saying?”

“I’m only saying that it’s possible that you’re on to something. Perception is reality after all. Maybe what you’re seeing actually is going on, but not here—if you know what I mean. But look at it this way: you’ve seen your death, what, billions of times? And you’re not dead, no matter how many times you thought you would be. Statistically speaking, the odds of dying now are billions to one, am I right?”

That did the trick. By the end of the week, Will was out of the hospital and back to normal life. He still saw his death every now and then, but he had statistics on his side. He had avoided falling down his stairs, slitting his own throat and now settled down to breakfast. But that still left the sausage…

I am going to die one day, he thought. Eventually statistics will catch up. Eventually I’m going to see my death and it will happen. What’s the point? What is there to look forward to?

He thought and said aloud, “Well…this breakfast for one thing.” He popped the sausage into his mouth and smiled.

Jan

Homecoming

By Gary Harmon 10 Comments

Categories: #Flash Friday

Hi again, guys.

I’m in a different place now, not only physically but from a writing stand point as well. I like Brad & Joe but they’re going to have to wait until I can figure out what to do with them. Till then, I have a feeling that I’ll be writing more serious stuff like the following.

I was wondering when I’d start writing about my military experience and evidently enough time has passed. A few years ago, I’m not sure I could get through writing something like this.

Here it is, my #FridayFlash of the week, “Homecoming”.

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HOMECOMING

Jake was tense walking through the airport, but he was used to tension. This was a new and unfamiliar kind. He had spent two and a half years in Iraq and had decided that he had spent his last Christmas in a war zone. He was scheduled to be out of the army by March but the leave he had accumulated got him out a week into the New Year. He had grown accustomed to tension; convoying on a “black” road, going door to door looking for insurgents, being on base when they had gone just a little too long without a mortar attack. This was a different kind of tension. “Maybe it’s just the jet lag,” he told himself.

He walked on to the baggage claim area and tried to let it sink in—“I’m not a soldier anymore”—but it rang false to him. He frowned, adjusted his backpack and coughed. His throat felt scratchy as it always did whenever he went longer than a few hours without a cigarette. He passed by a kiosk and decided to buy a soda.

He waited in line behind a few men looking up at a TV mounted on the wall showing CNN.

“Those Washington clowns are at it again,” one man said. “This whole country’s going to hell.”

“No thanks to Obama,” the other said. “Yes we can. Hmph. More like, no we can’t.”

The men laughed and it made Jake feel uneasy. Politics was never his forte, especially not in a warzone. In a warzone there was no such thing as politics. There was simply the mission and getting it done. Whether you were for the administration or not, it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t get you home any sooner. Politics were just something else to make you miserable.

He gulped down the soda greedily and its sweet taste made him feel a little better. He tossed the empty plastic bottle in a trash can. He thought about his first deployment and how they burned their trash in a pit.

“We burn our shit too,” he once told his father.

“Really?” his father said eventually. Jake grew accustomed to the lag over satellite telephones.

“Well, it’s not like we’ve got people to come haul it away or anything. We don’t even have port-a-potties, really. Just a plywood box, a plastic toilet seat and half of a fifty gallon drum. Yep, we burn it and bury it.”

“You bury it? Why?”

“So feral dogs can’t get at it.”

He thought about calling his dad and telling him that he was coming home, but he thought that it would be more fun to just show up. Now he wasn’t so sure. Everything seemed strange now. He passed by large lighted billboards advertising better nail polish, better computers, better cars and better insurance. The signs seemed far too aggressive, too threatening. This was his hometown, where he grew up, and it felt foreign to him. Everything seemed out of place and wrong. Would his family be the same?

His mom had left years ago for someone with similar “habits” and his father did what he could. Jake and his younger brother Ronnie pulled together and tried to ease the burden on their old man. Ronnie was a smart kid, smarter than Jake, and had a real chance to go to college on a scholarship. Jake pushed him to pursue it and urged him not to be in a position where he had to join the military to get what he wanted. Ronnie was a junior in High School now; the same year Jake decided to join the Army.

Jake walked past a shop selling impractical gadgets of all sorts and he caught his reflection in the glass. Jake was different than Ronnie. Jake was fundamentally different from who he used to be. The Jake that had been Ronnie’s age was almost unrecognizable to him. Would he be unrecognizable to everyone he once knew? He hoped not and kept walking.

By the time he reached the baggage claim area, his body was screaming for nicotine. He saw that the conveyor belt on carousel for his flight wasn’t moving, so he went outside for a smoke. The cold outside air rushed at him and he squinted as it hit his face. He hadn’t quite gotten used to cold weather yet. He fished his cigarettes out of his pocket, lit one and felt the buzz work its way up his legs, into his chest and to his arms.

All around him other smokers were on their cell phones. That was something else he’d have to get used to. He had grown accustomed to thinking of cell phones as a potential danger. Most IED’s in Iraq were detonated by cell phones. He tried not to think about it and watched the cars drive past the terminal. A yellow taxi rolled past and with a Middle Eastern man behind the wheel. “A hajji,” he thought and knew immediately how racist that was. There was something else he’d have to get over. “That may be cool in the box, Jake, but not here in the real world.”

BANG!

He reacted before he could think, ducking behind a concrete pillar. “Small arms fire,” he thought, “coming from the left.” He hunkered down, making as small a target as possible. He thought quickly about what he could do, where he could run for cover and how not to be a victim. Then he realized that the explosion he heard was a car backfiring. He stood up slowly and could tell distantly that his hands were shaking. He walked back inside, ignoring the looks from bystanders.

He would get his bag, hop in a cab and go home. He would ignore the thought that real life would be hard. He would ignore the fact that there would be no one around that truly understood what he was going through. He would ignore the fact that he missed his home—his real one.

Jan

Old Acquaintance

By Gary Harmon 5 Comments

Categories: #Flash Friday and Brad & Joe

Hi guys and welcome to my first #FridayFlash of twenty-ten!

As I said in an earlier post, I’ve kind of lost track of Brad and Joe and I just now managed to track them down. As I’ve also said in an earlier post, I’ve gone through some big changes. Where ever I might have been taking these two has changed due to, what the kids call, “IRL” issues.

So, I applied the same method to these guys as I would to a lock that I’ve lost the key to: I decided to bash it open with a sledge hammer. This is a bit of a different one for those of you that have kept up with my boys. You’ve been warned.

Here it is, a new #FridayFlash for the new year: Old Acquaintance.

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Joe made his way uneasily down the hall to Brad’s apartment. Joe wasn’t feeling at the top of his game; a little nauseous, a slight headache, but this was to be expected. It was New Year’s Day and he and Brad had tied one on the night before. Actually, they tied a few on. Actually, to do the metaphor any justice, Joe had to say that they had rented an industrial grade tying machine and spent the entire night tying whatever they could get their hands on to whatever else they could tie things to.

Joe knocked on the door and Brad answered it with a blanket draped around his shoulders. “Bradley,” Joe said less enthusiastically than he normally would. “You look like…” but Joe didn’t bother with his usual quip. “Hell, you look like I feel.”

Brad grunted and lead Joe into his living room. Joe was about to ask whether to order from Dominoes, Pizza Hut or to try that new place that opened up just down the street when Brad cut him off. “I’ve got something for you to see.”

Joe yawned. “What’s up? TV broke again?”

Brad collapsed into the couch. He motioned to the coffee table and Joe saw it.

“What…what’s that?” Joe said narrowing his eyes at the piece of paper on the table.

“I made…” Brad said, “I made a list.” Joe sighed and hung his head.

They had many discussions, usually in the days leading up to New Year’s Eve, about how dumb they thought New Year’s resolutions were. They’re usual point was that it was a little silly that we as a society pick an arbitrary point in our orbit around the Sun to make major life changes. In these discussions, they would usually mention the fact that New Year’s resolutions were never kept and that they were so unrealistic that if an individual really wanted to make the change, they would do it long before. Unless there was something seriously holding someone back, they should have to will power to change their own lives. Joe picked up the list and read each numbered entry.

“Alright, number one…drink less? What is this crap? Did you find God last night or something?” Joe said.

Brad shrugged reluctantly. “Just keep reading.”

“Number two: Take work more seriously, work on promotion.” Joe smirked at his friend and almost laughed.

“Let’s see…Number three: Start dating Courtney.” Joe laughed. “Well, just between you and me, I think that ship has sailed. I mean, you definitely had your shot there for a minute but the whole, you know, snot on your jeans thing might have sealed the deal for you. Besides, I think she’s seeing that Jason guy, isn’t she? You know he drives a Lexus, right?” Brad said nothing and Joe continued.

“Number four…finish novel and write more short stories? Huh? You write?”

“No, I don’t really know what that one is about. It’s not even in my handwriting, see? That must be someone else’s resolution.”

“Somebody else’s resolution? Whose?” Joe said.

“I don’t know, just keep reading.”

Joe was laughing freely now. “Alright…Number five…go to the gym more often?! Who are you kidding?!” Brad looked away.

“Ahh…number six: read more books. Yeah, sure. You have the attention span of a goldfish. Is this some kind of joke dude, because this is funny stuff!”

“Read the last one,” Brad said, not seeing anything funny.

“Number seven,” Joe said. His smile faded. “What is this?”

“”Go ahead, read it out loud like you did with all the other ones.”

“Brad, seriously, what is–”

“Read it!” Brad said. His voice bounced off the drywall of his apartment and made Joe flinch.

“Number seven: Stop doing everything Joe tells me to do. Stop being lead around by Joe. Stop being Joe’s lapdog. Stop doing things that I don’t want to do because Joe says so.”

They sat in silence as the snow fell outside. A car spun its wheels in thick white slush somewhere outside.

“So what is this?” Joe said. “What? You don’t want to be friends any more?”

“No, it’s just…you know how you get some times man. I mean, how many people do you know that don’t want anything to do with you because you’re…you know…”

“Because I’m what?” Joe said, raising his hands of the armrests of Brad’s chair; the same chair he always sat in the morning after they’d go out drinking. “People that don’t talk to me because I’m me? Is that what you were going to say?”

“No, it’s just…you come off strong all the time. You know, abrasive. People don’t like to be manhandled all the time.”

“And that’s what you think I do to you, right?” Joe stood up, face red and furious. “What, do you think I’m some kind of bully or something? Do you think I just order you around? Do you think that I really think of you like you my lapdog?”

“Yes!” Brad shouted, springing to his feet. “Yes I do. And dude…I’m sick of it.” Brad turned away from him and walked over to the iced over window in his living room and stared out into the New Year’s day white landscape. He put his hand on the window and it was cold and stinging.

“Fine,” Joe said flatly and unemotionally. “If that’s the way you want it dude–if that’s the way you feel–cool. No fucking problem.”

Brad heard Joe walk out of the living room and close his front door. Brad continued staring out the window and slowly became aware of how cold his hand was. He brought his hand away from the window, wiped it on his blanket and put his hand in his arm pit. He watched as the water his hand had melted run down until it stopped altogether and started freezing again.

Brad picked up his phone and started dialing.

“Yeah, order for delivery please?…The usual? No…better make it a medium this time…”

Dec

Self-serving Blog Entry #2

By Gary Harmon Leave a Comment

Categories: Uncategorized

Here’s a few things that I’ve been up to…

So I’ve taken the last two months off of writing in any sort of serious manner, which not something that I had planned on doing. It’s funny, I feel like I’ve lost touch with Brad and Joe. When you you write as much about two fictional characters as I have with them, they start to become real people in a way. I’m going to have to give them a call and see what they’re up to, so to speak.

I’ve been thinking about this story for a while and I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind running it by you. No problem, you say? Good, what do you think about this:

A young guy, let’s say 27 or so, has a government job. Ultimate job security, some of the best benefits around, well paying and so on. I mean, this job is so good that he could see himself spending the rest of his life doing it and retiring with a 30 year pension check from the government. But here’s the problem: he’s fairly miserable at work and this isn’t what he wants to do with his life. So, he decides to quit his job and go to college to pursue a career in writing, something he actually loves doing.

But my main character has a bit of a problem. You see, despite his eagerness and apparent commitment to higher education, he can’t get past the fact that he was a fairly poor high school student. In fact, he almost didn’t graduate on time due to a failing grade–in English of all subjects. Not to mention the fact that it’s been a solid decade since he’s been in a classroom environment. It’s a big step and he’s nervous about going, but he’s already quit his job for college. There is basically no turning back for him.

If you haven’t guessed, this is exactly what I’m up against.

So, next fall I plan on attending the University of Kentucky…with kids ten years younger than me. Since I did my time in the Army, the Post 9/11 G.I. Bill basically gives me a free ride and money for rent while I’m in school. It’s a good deal and there’s really no reason for me not to have a degree. But still…but still…

*deep breath*

*long exhale*

Big step for me. I hope this works out. for me.

Anyway, aside from that, I’ve got some changes coming up for my little blog. My good friend and brother-from-another-mother Justin Brown is going to be my code monkey for some layout changes here at Mostly Pointless. Also, I plan on doing a few entries about my home town Lexington Kentucky and a few ways it kicks ass. I’m going to call it “My Hometown Kicks Ass”. Apt, huh?

With any luck, Brad and Joe will be back, if not this Friday, then soon (for those of you who have been reading about them, I recently got “Whip It” as my cell phone’s ring tone). I don’t think I’ll ever really be back in the groove unless I carve out an entirely new one from scratch. I guess I should get on that…

Dec

Rearview

By Gary Harmon 8 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized

Hi ya #FridayFlash crew!

I’ve been, shall we say, indisposed in the last month. Major changes due to what some would say are dangerous life choices have occupied my time since we last talked. Should I get the chance (and dare say, motivation), I’ll tell you about them. Interestingly enough, they have been related to writing and higher education.

Nevertheless, I’m back to the weekly thousand word grind again and it feels pretty good. I thought I’d give present tense a stab this time as well as a different kind of style for this week. That and I’ve been bugging lots of taxi drivers lately and I thought I’d incorporate that into a story.

So here you go, my #FridayFlash this week, “Rearview”.

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REARVIEW

Jerry is a taxi driver. He doesn’t like his job but it is, as any animalistic appliance from the Flintstones would tell you, a living. He had to admit that there was a certain gritty appeal to his work, but found more grit in his daily grind than he did appeal. He would have the occasional good fare and would have to occasionally clean the unmentionable leavings of his customers out of the backseat. On the whole, the job is a hassle.

Jerry works mostly at night, picking up people from the airport early in the evening and the drunken slobs later on. The perks of the job are almost nonexistent unless you are the type of person that enjoys seeing people do foolish things while they were pissed out of their heads. Two divorces, continuing financial hardships and general misanthropy has led Jerry to be exactly this kind of person.

If you piled into his cab late one night and asked him what the worst thing he had ever seen while the meter was running, he might tell you something like this:

“Well, one night I picked up this couple from a bar,” Jerry says, with the bar you were in shrinking in the back window. “You could tell that they had met that night. Couples aren’t usually as—enthusiastic—as those two were. I mean they were hot and bothered and ready to go. Anyway, they started really getting into each other, feeling each other up and all that, which, you know, I don’t mind. I keep an eye on people like that and I stop it before they get a chance to make a mess in my cab, if you know what I mean.”

Jerry pauses long enough to take a sip from his coffee at a red light. “And don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not some kind of pervert or anything, I don’t get off watching what people do in my back seat. It’s just that they usually don’t stick around to clean up when they’re done, you know? Anyway…

“So these two kids (young kids, maybe their late twenties) are going at it, really tearing into each other and they stop only long enough for the guy to tell me his address and they get back to it. So they’re in the back moaning and everything and she’s all like, “Oh Brad! Oh Brad!” and I’m about to stop them when the guy’s phone starts ringing.

“Then he gets this super guilty look on his face like it’s his wife on the phone or something and he tells the chick he’s with (who was smokin hot, by the way) that he has to take this call. He answers it and right off the bat I know it’s another woman. I don’t know who was on the phone, but I doubt it was his wife.”

At this point, you ask him how he knows.

“Well, first off, he wasn’t wearing a ring. I know that don’t mean much, he could have taken it off, but still, he wasn’t wearing one. Besides, some women don’t mind sleeping with a married man even if they know that the guy’s married. But more than anything, it was the way he acted, you know? He didn’t seem like a cheater and if he was, he was either new at it or really bad at it. And, more than anything I guess, he looked like he was a fairly descent kind of guy. He was probably just really into the girl that called him, you know?” Jerry says, taking another sip from his coffee.

“Anyway…the chick he was with meanwhile is singing along to the music from the radio, looking out the window. I mean she was gone…way gone. Drunk and sloppy and fading fast, you know what I mean? Well, eventually, she puts her head against the window and I don’t hear another peep out of her. So the guy is still talking to some chick on his cell and he tells me to take him to some club on the other side of town. I tell him that I’m not gonna be left with babysitting this girl who’s dead to the world in the back seat. Then he finds her purse, finds her address and we head out to drop her off. He walks her into her apartment and—here’s the really terrible part—he comes back out.”

Jerry takes another sip from his coffee. “Look, I don’t know about you, but a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush (sorry about all the bad puns…you know, bird? Bush? Never mind.). He should have just paid me the fare and gone with the chick he picked up. But no, the dumbass comes back out. I’m not saying that he should have done anything with her when she was all passed out, but he should have stayed until morning. He might have gotten a little somethin-somethin for his trouble.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Jerry says, looking at you in his rearview mirror. “You’re wondering how that’s the worst thing I’ve ever saw, right?” You shrug and take the bait. “Thing is, that’s the end of the story. After he dropped the girl off, he went to the other bar to meet Courtney or whatever he said her name was. I mean, I’ve seen people have sex in my backseat, shoot up, smoke up, throw up and worse. That Brad guy had a shot at something that night and threw it away for some other woman. I think that’s probably the worst.”

Silence overtakes the cab as you let Jerry’s story set in. “Maybe I’m just jaded. I’ve been married twice and I just don’t have time for messing around with what could-be anymore. I just hope that Courtney girl was worth it. It wouldn’t be for me.”

“Anyway, we’re here. That’ll be nine eighty-five.”

Nov

Bibo Ergo Sum

By Gary Harmon 6 Comments

Categories: #Flash Friday and Brad & Joe

Brad and Joe are back this week, but I have to admit that I’m not totally satisfied with this one. I suppose that I’ll chalk it up to the stresses of NaNoWriMo.

If you’re a NaNoWriMo’er and would like to add me as a friend, or you’d just like to laugh at how far behind I am, feel free to do so by clicking this. With any luck, I’ll be spending the weekend getting my stuff together and get closer to being on track.

As always with Brad & Joe, it helps to check out the other stories before getting into this one. I think this is fairly stand alone, but back-story is always fun. You can find their jackassery here.

Here’s this week’s #FridayFlash, “Bibo Ergo Sum”.

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BIBO ERGO SUM

Brad looked at Joe and shook his head. Joe nodded in agreement. They turned their heads back to the television. The show they were watching was about ants, something that Joe would have normally been interested in. Joe fidgeted and winced until he couldn’t take it any longer. He reached for the coat hanger that he had fashioned into a scratching tool and stuck it between his arm and his cast. Working it back and forth, he finally sighed in relief once the itching had abated.

“When does that thing come off?” Brad asked.

“The doctor said a few more weeks.”

“You didn’t get that Baker guy, did you? That guy was a dick.”

“No, they said Dr. Baker won’t take my case for some reason. Someone said something about cleaning up vomit? Does that sound familiar to you?”

“No. Maybe they were talking about that guy that threw up all over you at that party.”

“I don’t know. Anyway, Baker wouldn’t take me.”

“What a dick.”

They sat and watched the TV for a while longer and Brad turned to Joe again and shook his head.

“Hang on,” Joe said, “are you shaking your head for the reason I’m thinking…or about something else?”

“You know what I’m shaking my head about.”

Joe nodded and went back to watching whatever the networks had programmed for Saturday night Television.

“…Because it’s not gonna happen.”

“No, look, I’m with you on this. I’m not going to try any of those head games or try to sing that song. Look, one hundred percent, we’re not going out.”

“Oh, I know we’re not.”

They watched a while longer until Brad flipped it off with the remote.

“Why do we do it?” Brad said, still looking at the TV. “Why do we subject ourselves to hangovers and blackouts and all of the horrible things that come with drinking? If we weren’t as drunk as we were on Halloween, you never would have fallen down that ditch and broke your arm.”

“Well, on the plus side, I did manage to save those kids from that burning house.”

“I know, but still,” Brad said, standing up and slowly pacing the room. “Why do we drink so much? I mean, think of the money we could have saved if we hadn’t spent it all on booze. All of this just seems so surreal. We know that we shouldn’t go out, but we usually end up going anyway. It’s like we’re following some sort of script or like we’re characters in some bad story or something.”

“Well,” Joe said after a brief amount of thought, “how do we know that we aren’t fictional characters? How do we know that we’re actually real?”

“What? Of course I’m real, look at this,” Brad said patting his chest, “Hear that? That’s solid. Of course I’m real.”

“Yeah…but isn’t that just what a fictional character would say?”

Brad stopped pacing and thought. “What do you mean? You think this is “The Matrix” or something?”

“No, just, like…” Joe said, “Ok, hear me out. How do we know that we’re not, like, figments of somebody else’s imagination? How do we know that our thoughts and memories aren’t just part of a character biography, or something?”

“Well, that’s easy. Because…” Brad said and didn’t finish his sentence. Brad began pacing again. He fished his keys out of his pocket and began twirling them on his finger. There were the occasional interspersions of “What if…no…” and “How about…uhh…” but there was mainly silence between them as the thought deeply.

“Ok,” Brad said, “I don’t think that there’s anyway to prove we’re not actually in some Matrix-like environment.”

“Why not?”

“The brain is electrical, right? Everything we experience is our brain translating electrical impulses into something we can understand, right? Well, there’s nothing so special about electricity. It could be imitated.”

“Ok.”

“So there’s no real way to test for that. I think the real question is what is the nature of reality?” Brad said, as he spun his keys again.

“For the purposes of this discussion, I’d say…sobriety?”

Brad’s face lit up slightly. “Yeah…ok. Ok! Sobriety, good. We see situations as clear as we can when we’re sober. That’s a good reason not to go out.”

“But, you can hallucinate if you’re malnourished or sleep deprived. That’s definitely a departure from reality,” Joe said.

“Yeah…that’s true…”

“If you’re crazy with hunger, the only thing that might make sense to you is eat something poisonous. That’s definitely not a realistic thing to do.”

“Rrrright.”

Joe stood, inserted the coat hanger into his cast and kept talking. “Sanity is reality.”

“Yes, but how do we know that we’re sane? We could be crazy and not know it.”

“That’s true,” Joe said and wiggled the coat hanger around. “Sanity is a relative thing then, isn’t it?”

Brad nodded, lost in thought.

Joe said, “So, the only way that we know that we’re not as crazy as we could be…is to choose to put ourselves in an insane state…”

“…like being drunk…” Brad finished.

Brad held up his hands and gathered his thoughts. “To exist within reality,” he said, “or at least to think that you are within the boundaries of accepted reality, is to be sane. Sanity is relative. The only way to know that I’m not absolutely crazy, is by choosing to put myself in a less sane state. The most realistic and economic way to do this is to get drunk. I drink…therefore…I am.”

They looked at each other, stunned by their collective logical outcome.

Brad whipped a hand toward the door. “TO THE PUB!”

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Nov

My Writing Box

By Gary Harmon 2 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized

moving tip 2 No #FridayFlash this week, just a reasonably good reason why and maybe—just maybe—something to think about.

So I’m in the middle of moving from South Korea back to the states. At the time of writing, I’m operating on maybe two hours sleep because of extreme procrastination and extremely bad planning. As I’m type, Korean movers are hauling all of my earthly possessions off to parts unknown and I allow this under the assumption that I’m going to see it all again. The reason I’ve gotten such little sleep is because up until…oh, I’d say two nights ago, I had made no preparations for their coming. I started getting my stuff ready for them about 14 hours ago and I just finished maybe 30 minutes ago. So, that’s my excuse for no flash piece this week. I ask for NO pity. Regardless of inaction, it’s hard to concentrate on much else when you’ve got so much more else on your mind.

But here’s something—I hope—for you writers out there to think about.

A few years ago, I invested quite a bit into recording equipment; high quality mics, extremely expensive recording programs, mixing boards and just about anything else my expendable income would let me get away with (which was quite a bit actually). I play guitar and I had aspirations of doing some fairly decent DIY recording. To my dismay, there is a substantial learning curve when it comes to home recordings and I put my little project on the back burner. Suffice it to say that when I get into podcasting, I’ll be more than prepared.

So, when it came time to pack up, I had enough recording equipment to fill a 30 gallon plastic container. I also had enough DVD’s to fill a plastic container. The number of books that I have (which aren’t as many as I’d like) took up a fairly good chunk of another. Then came clothes and kitchen wares and other basic essentials which had their own boxes as well.

I stacked all of the boxes near the front door for the movers and the resulting pile kind of reminded me of Christmas. Here’s a big, satisfying mountain of neatly organized boxes that are simply waiting for someone. I thought about how satisfying that each box had a sort of theme to them. There’s my DVD box and there’s my Recording box and there’s my book box. Then I asked myself, “Yeah, but where’s my writing box?” As it turned out, I have no writing box and this worried me.

I suppose if I were an aspiring writer in the 70’s, I probably would have a writing box. I’d have a typewriter, lots of paper and any manuscript that I thought had potential. My actual “writing box” consists of the laptop that I’m typing this on and the 8GB memory stick that gets closer to the full mark every day. But still, even with technology being what it is, I still feel like I should have a writing box.

It occurred to me then that I actually need a DVD box. I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 DVD’s and they tend to take up a lot of room. Moreover, they need to take up space for them to be what they are. I also need a recording box. Mics, cables, pop filters and mixers aren’t exactly compact things and to record on semi-professional level, you need lots of stuff. What do I need for writing?

Do I actually need a computer? Only if I want to make blog entries. Do I need a typewriter? Not really. There’s always long hand. So what do I really need to write? A pencil, a piece of paper and an idea.

Furthermore, I don’t need some sort of device to actualize what I write; it simply needs to be read. I also don’t need a laundry list of peripherals to write; as I said, I simply need a pencil, a piece of paper and an idea. Once I realized this, I didn’t care about my lack of a writing box. My writing box, for better or worse, is sitting on top of my neck. It makes a fine hat rack, a cozy place to keep a pair of sunglasses and does, on occasion, come up with some reasonably readable stories.

So, everything that is legally mine is now just a few boxes amongst other boxes packed on a boat that will spend the better part of the next three months at sea. That’s just fine by me. The boat may sink and take with it all of my stuff and I’ll be out a very respectable DVD collection, a fine swath of books and enough recording equipment to almost start a small studio. But no matter where I go and no matter what I lose, as long as I can find a scribbler, something to scribble on and something to scribble about, I’ll always be a writer.

Just something to think about.

Oct

Terror in Exam Room Three

By Gary Harmon 9 Comments

Categories: #Flash Friday and Brad & Joe

It occurred to me a while back that I’ve never seen Brad & Joe actually drunk and behaving badly. Here they are at their worst. I had a lot of fun with this one.

A quick word to those of you that are deciding to dress up this year: please, for the love of Cheese, pick an original costume. Last year, I saw nothing but Jokers and most of them weren’t even well executed. Also, ladies, give the sexy cop, nurse, whatever a rest this year. It’s not clever, it’s not original, and all it says is that you’re choosing to look like a slut for Halloween. Bra-(slow sarcastic clap)-vo.

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TERROR IN EXAM ROOM THREE

Doctor Alan Baker was experiencing a level of job dissatisfaction that he didn’t think was professionally possible. His colleagues had told him horror stories about working the Emergency Room on Halloween night, but he never believed them. That is to say, he was never in a position to care too much about them because he had always arranged a subtle and clever way out of it. One year it was an obscure medical convention in another part of the country that he had planned to attend months in advance. One time, he had purposely taken double the amount of patients than he usually did and told his boss that simply couldn’t handle a shift in the E.R. that night. Whatever the excuse, it was believable and went completely unnoticed until this year. Time had, as it has a tendency to do when you’re as self-important as Dr. Baker, gotten away from him and October came far earlier than he was expecting. He was sucked in.

Baker looked over the ER and it was a sea of chaos. Vampires, ninjas, pirates; all of them in full costume and all seeking some sort of medical treatment. Judging by the more than faint aroma coming from the patients, alcohol was involved in most cases.

“Exam room three, Dr. Baker. You’ve got a Wookie with an injured arm,” the nurse said, handing him a folder and went frantically back to work.

“A Wookie?”

Dr. Baker walked into Exam Room three to find not only a barely conscious Wookie sitting on the exam table, but also Han Solo who was entertaining himself with an ophthalmoscope. They reeked of sour booze and cigarettes.

“Hey doc!” Han Solo slurred, “Wanna drink?” and extended him a metal flask. It was only the good doctor’s devotion to the Hippocratic Oath that kept him from stepping out.

“Put that away! This is a hospital, not a bar!” Baker turned to the Wookie on the table. “You’re…Joseph Crandal?”

“No, he’s Chewbacca!” Han Solo said, raising his hands in triumph. The Wookie nodded silently and cradled his right arm.

“I’m sorry, who are you? And don’t say Han Solo.”

“Fine, ya party pooper. I’m…uhh…Brad,” Brad paused to burp, “that’s Joe, and lemme guess…you’re Doctor House, right? Not very creative, if you ask me.” Brad burped again and exhaled.

The mention of Baker’s least favorite show about doctors did nothing to endear Brad to him. He ignored the comment and went to examine the patient.

Joe’s costume looked like it had once been almost of a professional grade at the beginning of the night. However, a night of drinking, partying and idiocy had left it a matted, dirty mess. Baker thought it might only be useful as a horse blanket if you didn’t particularly like the horse in question. Baker told him to take his arm out of the suit and Joe did slowly and carefully. Joe looked away as Baker inspected the area.

“No blood. I hate blood,” Joe said, nearly unable to say anything.

“No blood but you may have fractured your arm. We’ll have to x-ray it. How did this happen?”

“N’OK, here’s what happened,” Brad said, raising unsteadily to his feet. “We were out at the bar and we’d had a few.”

“Really?” Baker said dryly.

“Pfft, yeah!” Brad said, missing the sarcasm. He pulled the toy blaster out of its holster and began to unsuccessfully twirl it on a finger. “So we decided to go to my ex-girlfriend’s house with a bag of poop, light it on fire, ring the doorbell and run. Well, after Joe pooped in the bag–”

“Excuse me?”

Brad swayed slightly in place for a moment and said, “Well where else are we going to find poop…at this time of night…Ninnyway, Joe had been drinkin some shots and had spilled some on his pants…or suit…or whatever it is. Pants-suit. So, he lit the bag on fire and then–POOF! There goes Joe floppin over the porch railing and into a bush. And on fire.”

Baker stared at him.

“And then we came here,” Brad said, motioning to his surroundings.

Baker continued to stare. “Why would you want to do something like that?”

Brad furrowed his brow and contemplated it seriously. “It was a bad idea,” Brad said, offering it as an entry for The Understatement of the Decade award. “She didn’t deserve that. She’s great. Reeeealy nice. And she had the biggest–I mean THE BIGGEST set of–”

“Alright, enough! I don’t need to know this.”

“My foot feels funny,” Joe said distantly.

“What’s wrong, does it hurt?” Baker said.

“There’s your problem,” Brad said, pointing at one of his red Chuck Taylors with his toy gun. The shoes somehow went brilliantly with a Wookie costume. “You’ve got a big nail stuck in your foot!”

Baker came around and found a three inch nail sticking out of the top of his foot. “How did you–never mind. This will have to come out and you’ll need a tetanus–”

“I’ll get it, doc,” said Brad and reached for the nail. Before Baker could protest, Brad had yanked the nail out. A thin stream of blood shot out at regular intervals in step with Joe’s heat beat.

“You idiot!” Baker said. As he was about to toss him out of the room, he saw Joe beginning to wretch.

“No,” Brad said waving a finger, “don’t you do it…you’ll get me started.” Joe didn’t listen and decided to vomit in his own lap.

“Oh God!” Brad said, gripping the exam table. “Oh God! Oh–” and decided to follow Joe’s example by vomiting on the floor.

Baker stuck his head out of the door and yelled for a nurse.

“Phew!” Brad said, looking at a barely conscious Joe. “And I thought you smelled bad…on the outside!”

***

The next day, Doctor Baker scheduled his Halloween plans for the next few years and they were far, far away from the Emergency Room.

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I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t post this as well.

Oct

Random Science Blog #1: The Moon

By Gary Harmon Leave a Comment

Categories: The Top of My Head

Our moon does several important things for us. The most notable effect are the tides which are affected by moon’s gravitational pull. The moon also anchors Earth’s axial tilt at a more or less steady 23.44 degrees. It has been theorized that the Moon’s presence has slowed the rotation of the Earth from a rather rushed and hectic 8 hour day to a much more laid back and easy-to-get-along-with 24 hour day.

Some scientists have proposed that the Moon as we know it today was actually once apart of the Earth. Proponents of what’s called “The Giant Impact Hypothesis” put forward that when the Earth was still mostly molten, a Mars sized object collided with Earth and all the blobbie bits that were floating about in space convalesced into La Luna.

The Earth and the Moon have become so accustomed to each other that the Moon now has what’s called a “Synchronous Rotation”, meaning that the time it takes for the moon to rotate is about the same time it takes for the Earth to rotate. This means that as long as there have been humans, we’ve only ever seen one side of our moon from Earth.

There is some troubling news though. The Moon is moving away from us at a rate of one and a half inches every year. This means that there will come a time when the Moon gets bored with us bombing it and moves on to pastures new. This would be devastating. First of all, say goodbye to tides and all of the fish that use them for reproductive purposes. Also, nocturnal animals that once depended on the little lunar illumination that they were provided would now be, in a very real way, left in the dark. In fact, once the moon gets tired of our shenanigans and goes of to orbit something not so silly, it would more than likely trigger the end to life on our planet.

Without the Moon’s stabilizing presence, the Earth would grow lazy and might start rotating on which ever axis it wanted. Hey, Antarctica might be the new resort location and brave souls might try to endure harsh and unforgivable frozen wastelands of Brazil. Of course, a far more likely scenario is that humans would become extinct just like everything else. Massive and sudden climate changes are usually catastrophic for all life.

This, though, would probably never happen. Long before the moon jumps ship, the sun will have expended all of its fuel, evolve into a “Red Giant”, expand (as Red Giants do) and destroy the Earth and anything else in its path.

But cheer up, this isn’t scheduled to happen for another five billion years or so. At our current rate, we’ll destroy the Earth long before the Sun or Moon gets a chance to. So let’s hear it for being ahead of the curve! High Five! Anybody? Anybody?

Oct

Uncle Joe’s Cabin

By Gary Harmon 9 Comments

Categories: #Flash Friday and Brad & Joe

Racism is an ugly, ugly thing and there is no quick fix for it. In America, it has become mostly socially unacceptable to express anything even remotely racist, which is a good thing. But, I think people can become a little too rigid when it comes to race related issues. You see, I’m of the opinion that if there’s something you’re afraid to talk about, it has a certain power over you. The only way to strip it of this power is to talk about it. Better yet, make fun of it.

In the tradition of “Blazing Saddles” and “The Boondocks”, here is my contribution to poking fun at racism. My intent is not to offend, so I apologize in advance if it happens. If race issues are something that you absolutely cannot laugh about, you might be better off not reading this. But, if you can make the distinction between racist and race-related (and more importantly, fiction and non-fiction), have a read and hopefully a laugh too.

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UNCLE JOE’S CABIN

Joe nervously listened to Mr. Barlowe, only looking away to make sure no one was eying him suspiciously. Mr. Barlowe had come in to the office to train them all about the evils of racism in the work place. Joe was nervous because of his over inflated sense of inherited guilt. As a kid, he was appalled when he learned of the horrible ways that white people had abused nearly every other race on the planet and felt that he was personally responsible. Brad tried to talk sense into him several times stating that Joe had never owned any slaves, never been to a lynching and never did anything in any way disrespectful to anyone of a minority. This did nothing to assuage his shame and self-loathing.

Brad on the other hand had no such hangups for pretty much the same reasons that he gave to Joe. In fact, he hated this training because of how offensive he found it. The instructors always gave some horribly offensive situation and more racial slurs than he’d hear in the next year. Brad felt these classes gave more ammunition to racists than they did discouragement.

“…and I think we’ve all heard things like: all black people like fried chicken or all white people are bad dancers or all Mexicans are lazy. These things simply aren’t true.”

“Goddamn it!” Brad said under his breath to Joe, “Can you believe this?!”

Joe shushed him and focused on Barlowe. Brad looked over at the notes Joe was taking and read: “not all Mexicans lazy.” ‘All’ was underlined. Brad looked up at his friend who was listening intently to every word. He thought this personality quark to be at odds with Joe’s brash temperament, but it was there nonetheless. Brad figured that at least some of this anxiety stemmed from the fact that their boss, Mr. Sinclair, was black. Brad looked over at Mr. Sinclair and he appeared as uncomfortable as everyone else in the room. The clock on the wall told Brad that they had another full hour of this. Brad had to do something.

“A common belief these days is that all Arab-Americans are terrorists. I know, they may look scary, but they’re people just like you and me and only a small handful are actually terrorists…”

“Holy shit! This is terrible!” Brad said under his breath and Joe shushed him again.

Brad couldn’t believe his ears or Joe. He thought about the fact that if Joe was racist to anyone, it was white people.

That’s when Brad got a wonderful idea. An awful idea. Brad got a wonderfully, awful idea.

He raised his hand.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Barlowe, there’s uhh…there’s something I’d like to say but I don’t want to get in trouble for it.”

“Yes, go ahead. Feel free to discuss whatever you want. As long as you’re respectful, you’ll be fine.”

“Well sir, it’s about Obama. I mean, I know it’s wrong for not trusting him based on his ethnicity, but I just can’t help it.”

The room received a fresh coat of unease.

“Well…there are lots of rumors out there about the President, but most of them are simply untrue.”

“No, it’s not rumors I have a problem with. It’s…well…the color of his skin.”

“So…you’re saying you have a problem with him being black?”

“No, no. Not at all. I have a problem with him being white,” Brad said, adding a fresh coat to the room.

“I, uhh…” Mr. Barlowe said, “You mean, you have a problem with mixed-race people?”

“No, like I said, I have a problem with white people.”

“But…you’re white.”

“I know…it’s horrible, isn’t it?”

Joe’s eyes were wide and he was awash with inner turmoil. On one hand, he knew that Brad didn’t mean what he was saying. On the other, he kind of sort of agreed with him. Joe didn’t know whether to shut him up or applaud.

“Well, uhh…hmm,” Mr. Barlowe said uneasily.

“Yeah, I know it’s wrong to judge someone by the color of their skin, but I can’t help it,” Brad said, feigning a modicum of shame.

“But why don’t you trust white people?” Barlowe said, hoping to bring something reasonable into the discussion.

“Most of the worst people in history were white,” Brad said matter-of-factly.

“Well, that’s not-”

“Hitler: white. Stalin: white. Michael Bay: White.”

“Now hold on, what’s wrong with Michael Bay?!” Barlowe could see that he losing control of this conversation.

“Have you seen Transformers? Terrible!”

Grunts of agreement sounded throughout the room.

“I mean, here’s this Caucasian,” Brad said, using the word like it was an insult, “making a movie based on a childhood love of mine. He has attacked and defiled the very roots of my culture!”

Barlowe tried to speak but was cut off.

“Charles Manson, Ted Kaczynski, the Sham-wow guy; all white and all horrible people. You see, the white man has-”

“OK! OK!” Barlowe said, waving his hands frantically. “I think, umm, that’s enough for today. I think uhh, I think we’ve all learned a lot. Thank you for your time.” Mr. Barlowe collected his things and made a hasty exit, obviously disturbed. There was an unenthusiastic golf-clap and everyone shuffled out of the room and back to their cubicles.

“I can’t…I can’t believe you did that!” Joe said to Brad once they were out of earshot of everyone else. “How could you…how could you-”

“You’re saying you disagree?”

“I…yes.”

Brad looked at him, raising an eyebrow and unconvinced. Joe was about to say something, but he saw Mr. Sinclair coming their direction.

“Mr. Stockley,” Sinclair said to Brad, “I have got to say that I have never heard anything like that before in my life.” Joe backed away, not wanting anything to do with Brad’s practical joke. “What’s more, I’ve never thought to do that. Nice work. I hate those training sessions, they’re so offensive.”

“No problem, sir,” Brad said smiling.

Mr. Sinclair walked away, chuckling. “Michael Bay! Ha!”

Brad turned to a paralyzed Joe. “Back to work, white boy.”

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